I had been keeping my eye on Sorare as a dark horse in the digital collectible race because they had some interesting parallels to early baseball cards that weren't really considered collectible when they were first issued. Those were for selling tobacco products--these were fantasy sports game pieces.
I bought a few in 2022 (their first year) and ended up selling them as values were starting to fall with the idea that I'd buy back in eventually.
When they dropped the Tokyo Series set to start the 2025 MLB series, I knew that time had come after seeing the art. Using a unique design for a limited series and only being available a limited time, I saw that Sorare was starting to lean more into the collectible thesis for their products and I was interested.
A few points about Sorare if you're not familiar:
They are printed in sequence to be sold at auction or fixed price listings up the max value shown on the front of the collectible. So, in some cases there really are that many but especially for the Limited (up to 1,000) and Rare (up to 100) tiers it's not common they max out. They only have a max of one at auction and one at fixed price (which is dynamic based on auction sales with a premium applied) available at a time, so that helps control the pop and keep it aligned with demand.
Sorare does mint pieces that are available in crafting mechanics or as prizes for game week performances, which does add a bit to the population. These are structured in tiers based on average sales value, so it is stingier with the star players.
The special editions are considered part of that player's continuous series that season and are numbered in sequence. The Tokyo Series happen to be lower serials because that was the first series of the season. Later special editions are numbered based on the sequence when they were issued.
The special editions are sold at auction and fixed price listings for a limited time. Last year, it was about a week generally. If you happen to craft or get a reward while these are active, they are included in the pools but are typically pretty difficult to pull.
A player can have multiple special editions in a season.
In this case, Ohtani's 2025 Limited maxed out at 572 and there were 29 Limited Tokyo Series editions minted.
For this one in particular, I thought the art and player connection was a no-brained to pay extra to pick this up. This also became my most used Ohtani game piece as well, as you can tell from the stats on the back.
Sorare is an interesting proposition and because of the license situation with Panini and the platform issues with Topps, there are a few seasons where the only MLB digital collectibles available are through Sorare and Candy. People largely haven't caught onto the collectible potential of Sorare and you can get some good values relative to the population.